


La Vie En Rose

by pansypxrkinson



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A little bit of angst, Cigarettes and boys talking about their feelings, Feels and cheesiness, Fluff, Gen, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Moving On, Prompt Fic, Random French proverbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 14:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13572165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansypxrkinson/pseuds/pansypxrkinson
Summary: What does he do now when there's nothing more to prove. No more revenge to seek, or lives to save. Harry's not quite sure...





	La Vie En Rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SailorSlash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSlash/gifts).



> Just a little prompt that I wrote last night.  
> Thank you to SailorSlash for the amazing idea! <3 It was such a pleasure to write. :D

The water is cool where Harry dips his fingers into it. He watches the rivulets where they roll down his fingers, following the veins and creases of his hand, bumping over the scar he has there. The permanent echo of Umbridge.

The summer air is suffocating and so it's a welcome break to be out here.  
Even the water is lazy and it runs placidly, the air far too still for anything else. It's much too hot to be working inside; overheating against the hot stone walls of the Charms classroom with the rest of them.

Besides. No one is going to tell Harry what to do anymore. They're either too scared of him, or too fond. It should be nice, especially after a living a life upon which his path was set for him. Playing the role of the oppressed orphan, the sacrificial lamb. He thinks his newfound freedom should feel liberating. 

It doesn't. 

He thinks there certainly is a thing as too much freedom. Especially when Harry's own mind rebels. When he doesn't want to get out of bed and face the abyss of living a life he never thought he'd get to see; but is equally just as terrified of the monsters in his own head. Of staying there in his dorm and wasting away his days stuck in the past like a broken record.  
Sometimes he thinks the only reason he'd survived was under the weight of the world's expectations. Dumbledore's expectations, Ron and Hermione's expectations, and most importantly the shadow of his parents. The constant reminder he, Harry, the walking proof of their sacrifice. 

What does he do now when there's nothing more to prove. No more revenge to seek, or lives to save. Harry's not quite sure.

So that's why he's here. The fresh air is better than the cloying silence of his dorm, so he supposes that's something.

He continues to pick great handfulls of knotgrass as it curls around his fingers, fiddling in the pocket of his hoodie until he finds it. He grasps the pack of Dunhill cigarettes and lights one with the muggle lighter he'd nicked from town. He'd use his wand, but recently his magic seems to be working against him. It's particularly unfortunate when he needs a smoke because usually that means he's feeling terrible emotions and is too shaken to cast properly. He'd turned the whole thing to ash in his fingers one day.  
It had hurt like a bitch. 

Plus he likes the idea of a carrying around a lighter. Like little fires in his pocket. The idea is strangly comforting.

He takes a drag, and sighs into the smoke. He doesn't move when someone sits down next to him. 

Doesn't even move when he realises it's Malfoy.

He merely nods at him. 

"I take it you're skipping too," he mutters, his mouth caught between the cigarette.

"Yep." Malfoy sighs, as he leans back against a tree.

"Why?" He asks. Not really sure as to why he cares.

"I'm tired of sitting in class when I can't concentrate, and I'm tired of sitting in the dorm." He says it in monotone, like he's said it before a million times.

"Fair enough," Harry mutters. Even though he almost wants to say he can relate. He's not sure if now is the right time to be having heart to heart discussions with Malfoy.

Harry's lack of response doesn't seem to bother him for he continues, "Even now, it's still bloody cold in there. Whichever idiot decided to build a dorm in the middle of an ice cold lake, I'll murder them. Mark my words, Potter."

Harry startles then, for his tone suddenly seem so reminiscent of the snotty eleven year old boy he used to hate. It's weird combining both his old and new perceptions of Draco Malfoy. Like superimposing two different images on top of one another.  
Usually now he just wanders about the school alone. He keeps to himself and Harry's not sure if they've actually spoken since before the War. The nostalgia makes him bold, for some reason and he cracks a smile, and plucks the cigarette from his mouth.  
"Want a hit?" He offers. Purely for the sake of garnering a response.

"What is it? Are you trying to poison me?" 

"Well. That depends on your definition of poison," He pops it back in his mouth and shrugs at Draco's baffled expression. "It's worth it maybe? A little death. Like sex. La petite mort and all... it helps me to forget everything." He flicks the cigarette, dusting the ash on the grass below.

He gazes at the whomping willow in the distance as it flings another bird off of its branches, he's enjoying the way the sun browns his neck. Malfoy seems to be considering his words carefully. 

"Qui n’avance pas, recule,"

Harry looks at him, "What?" 

"Qui n’avance pas, recule," he repeats and of course Malfoy would speak perfect French. He'd never miss a chance to upstage Harry. Still, the familiarity of rivalry is just a little bit reassuring now that everything is so scarily new.

"It means...if you don't move forward you'll move backward." He nods to the lake. "Expect poison from the standing water. That's what William Blake said." Harry raises his eyebrows at him.

"...We've been doing poets in Muggle Studies. I think it's actually quite relevant. To me at least. To take chances. After everything. So yeah, I'll take it," He nods at Harry's cigarette.

Harry's not sure that's the best idea. He hadn't thought he would say yes, but he doesn't want to get into a fight, so he hands it over.

He watches as Draco places his mouth around it tentatively, and tries not to blush at the sight of it. However he's soon distracted as Draco splutters, "Ugh, disgusting. Merlin, I take it back. I'd take standing water over that any day." He swiftly chucks it into the lake. It extinguishes with a soft hiss.

"Hey!" 

"Sorry Potter, but whatever that thing is, it's not doing you any favours..." His voice sounds distinctly hoarse and Harry feels a little bad.

Harry thinks he'd probably be pissed if anyone other than Draco Malfoy had said that to him. However he just nods, and breathes into the silence that follows.

"You know, Potter. I think I've had enough smoke in my lungs to last a lifetime. I think you have as well." He says it casually, but Harry doesn't miss the weight behind it. 

"...Maybe that's true. Got to move forward like you said." Harry glances down at the cigarette packet on the ground. The knotgrass is steadily trying absorb it, its tiny blades knitting around it.

He wrenches it free from its grasp. "Still it's hard to kick the habit though. To dull the memory. Smoke is hard to destroy. You can't kick something like that. Not physically, I mean... It'll always linger." Harry says conversationally, though he doesn't think he's talking about smoking anymore.

"I guess so. That's all it will ever be though. A ghost. Smoke and memories. Basically immaterial. I've...I've thought about it, and I don't think they can hurt us anymore. Not like they used to." Now they're definitely not talking about cigarettes. He watches as Draco leans his head back against the tree, and Harry spends longer than he'd like to admit admiring the column of his throat. It's lightly freckled and slightly pink from the heat of the sun. 

"I suppose you're right. Doesn't stop it from being tough though..." 

"Yeah. That's why I'm here actually. I'm sick of hiding away. I didn't think I'd be able to face myself after everything I've done. I wasn't sure I could turn up here after everything and just attend Herbology like nothing had ever changed. But here I am..." He laughs in that same self deprecating way that Harry knows intimately. 

It makes him angry hearing that emotion in Draco voice though. It is a sympathy he never could afford himself, but it makes him brave.

"You're wrong. You've changed, and that is the most important thing. I don't think the rest of it matters anymore. We all have blood on our hands. I think we all did what we believed we had to. Even if we were dead wrong," he moves to face him.

"You have as much right to be here as I do." 

Draco stares at him, and it's so stunning that Harry's passion ebbs away a little. 

He's never really noticed before, but he looks different somehow. Different to how he'd looked when they'd fought in sixth year. His hair falls around his face softly, and his mouth seems fuller, his lips not thinned or stretched into a sneer anymore. Even his eyes look different. It may be Harry's imagination but they are not so steely anymore, but much warmer and crackling with something, like a storm bearing thunder. Harry can't read the expression in them, but he can't seem to tear his eyes away either. 

Finally Draco turns away from him. He plucks a moondew flower from the grass and begins breaking petals off of it absentmindedly. 

"Tu vois la vie en rose," he mutters, "but thank you."  

That's interesting. Part of Harry wants to know what on Earth he means, but he's still so distracted by the weight of his own desire that he simply nods and looks over the expanse of the water. It's starting get a little choppy now as the wind picks up.

They sit in together in the gentle breeze until the heat from the sun becomes unbearable. When they finally decide they should head up to the Great Hall for lunch, Harry thinks that just maybe moving forward isn't so daunting after all. Not if he's got something to light the way. 

"Thanks," he mutters, and Draco doesn't need to ask what for. 

As he turns to leave, his jacket feels oddly light. He hears a soft smack, and can't even bring himself to care when he sees his cigarettes sinking to the bottom of the water from Draco's empty hand. 

The water's certainly not still anymore, and the feeling of Draco's fingers which brush against his as they walk away are more than enough to quell any loss he might have felt.


End file.
